


Velocity

by theLiterator



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Drama, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Pre-Series, Pseudoscience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 03:20:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5769352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harrison thinks he might have a way to match Zoom, and Jay is desperate to save his city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Velocity

“Jay Garrick,” Harrison said, smiling at the man who stood to greet him. It felt strained-- little had made him _want_ to smile lately, but the social niceties must be observed.

“Dr. Wells,” Garrick replied, frowning in response.

Harrison wheeled silently over to his one-time rival. “I have a proposition for you,” he said. “You have been writing letters to the editor of the Central City Times about stopping Zoom; I think I may have found a way to do that.”

“Stop Zoom?” Garrick asked sitting back down and leaning forward on his elbows. “You’ve figured out how he got his speed, then?”

“Perhaps,” Harrison replied, fingers twitching in his lap. “Perhaps not. But no matter how he got _his_ speed, I think I have found a way to at least mimic the results.”

Garrick leaned back, frowning harder. “How?”

“Neo-neurogenesis.” When Garrick looked perturbed at that, Harrison shrugged. “You could _hardly_ have expected me to _embrace_ this fate.”

“Why not,” Garrick snapped. “It’s your own damned fault. Small price to pay, compared to--”

Harrison kicked his foot off the foot rest. He didn’t have very much fine motor control, but he had regained some mobility, and he expected to continue to improve.

“The fascinating thing is, Garrick,” Harrison said calmly, when Garrick didn’t look like he’d be able to string together a response through his surprise, “When you artificially increase the metabolism of cells a thousandfold in an effort to stimulate growth and repair, they start to _vibrate_.”

“Like Zoom,” Garrick whispered.

Harrison smiled, this time with genuine pleasure. “Like Zoom,” he agreed.

***

Jay didn’t like any of it, except for how he _did_. The initial sample of cells came from Harrison Wells’s own cerebrospinal fluid, and it had taken him far too long to make the slides, his hands shaking and his gut churning in visceral reaction to the faintly yellow sample.

It should be _inside_ Dr. Wells, not on this glass slide.

When he finally focused the microscope on actual cells, he could see the faint vibration, and he jerked back, blinking.

“You see?” Wells asked, too-eager, and Jay wanted to tell him he was wrong, that this was futile, but he _had_ seen, and as he bent back to the microscope, he watched and tried to decide what the peculiarly rhythmic vibration reminded him of, until...

“It’s like quartz,” he said. “Your cells are behaving like piezoelectric oscillators.”

“Yes,” Dr. Wells said gleefully, and when Jay turned back to him, his smile was genuine, and not a litte infectious. “And the next question? Even a _chemist_ should make this leap.”

“Where’s the current coming from?” Jay asked, even though he wanted no part in Dr. Wells’s game.

Harrison’s eyes were sparkling and warm, because he knew the truth: if this _was_ the key to stopping Zoom, then… then he really, _really_ did.

 

***

Harrison had taken the first dose against medical advice, finding a black market physician who was perfectly pleased to inject whatever Harrison liked into his spinal column without asking any questions, so long as Harrison had paid him.

After that painful experience, he had set out, in his non-existent free time, to design an injection mechanism that was completely painless and didn’t require professional administration. He’d convinced Jesse that it was a prescription pain-killer, and since then she’d been the one to give him the serum.

He had hardly expected results-- increasing metabolism of specific cells only to accelerate (or initiate, in the case of his severed neurons) healing had been theorized in many circles, but he felt that if there had been any promise in the idea, someone else would have beat him to it.

After all, nerve-regeneration was largely considered nearly impossible; especially in an injury as progressive and old as his was.

For the first time since he’d seen his toes wiggle in the bath, he felt like he hadn’t completely lost it. The naked shock and curiosity on Garrick’s face meant that they were, in fact, seeing the same thing on the slide.

“We should really find a biologist or a biochemist for this,” Jay suggested. “Dr. Caitlin Snow at Mercury Labs wrote a paper--”

“She’s in a coma,” Harrison cut him off.

Jay laughed, a short, disbelieving noise. “One of the world’s leading molecular biochemists, your best bet at utilizing this discovery, to making a panacea, is in a _coma_. Let me guess; lightning struck her lab the night _your_ accelerator blew up?”

“Liquid nitrogen,” Harrison said, swallowing hard at the reminder. “You don’t need to rub it in, Garrick; I’m well aware of the ramifications of that explosion.”

“Yeah?” Garrick demanded, whirling his chair so he could face Harrison head-on, eyes snapping. “Funny. I’ve seen the press conferences; you don’t _look_ like a guy who realizes that he’s personally responsible for the deaths of 17 people, and the injury and hospitalization of dozens more.”

Harrison rubbed his temples and shook his head. If there had been anyone else who he’d dared trust-- but Garrick was the only person he’d ever met who was both clever enough and un-selfish enough to be trusted.

“Clearly it was a mistake to invite you here,” Harrison snapped. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t _walk you out._ ”

Garrick swallowed and dropped his eyes in shame. “No. You’re right, I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. You know-- I was-- I’m sorry. You’re trying to help, I can see that.”

Harrison blinked, shocked. He wondered at that, the ease with which Garrick backed down, admitted fault.

He’d never been particularly skilled at that.

Tess had been, but Tess was dead.

“I’m sorry about Tess, too,” Garrick continued. “I know-- she was always lovely, and brilliant. It must be hard, for you and for Jesse.”

“Tess respected you and your work a great deal,” Harrison said. “She would have appreciated that.”

Garrick snorted, then leaned back, an eager smile flickering at the corners of his mouth. “So, Wells, I take it you have a plan?”

“Yes,” Harrison said, wheeling over to one of his computer banks and pulling up the simulation of the compound he’d been injecting. “I’ve been thinking about ways to facilitate systemic infiltration, but I never was particularly good at chemistry.”

Garrick moved in close behind him and braced his hands on Harrison’s wheelchair, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. “Show me,” he said, voice tight with the familiar anticipation of discovery, of finding a _solution_ to a problem they both hated.

Harrison smiled where Garrick couldn’t see it.

***

Jay liked the name Harrison had decided on, despite the fact that it was ridiculous.

The Velocity project started with Jay dismantling half of the quantum mechanical sensors from the pipeline under Harrison’s acerbic guidance and planting them throughout the city, waiting for Zoom to run past so they could take readings.

Harrison didn’t like the numbers, staring at them into long hours of the night and tapping rhythmic, angry beats on the arm of his wheelchair.

Jesse didn’t seem worried about the moodiness, and she would know her father far better than Jay did, but something about the way he cursed at the readings and occasionally ran models and threw things made Jay uneasy. Otherwise, though, Harrison was really starting to grow on him. It helped that his moods could change in a breath, that he showed joy in discovery as often as disgust in failure.

When Jay had asked about the simulations, Harrison laughed that self-loathing little laugh of his and shook his head. “It’s not Zoom; it’s just numbers, Garrick.”

“What kind of numbers?” Jay had asked, all the more curious because of the dismissal.

“Physics numbers, not chemistry. Why don’t you go decant something?” Harrison snapped, but he was smiling, so it didn’t sting. Wouldn’t have anyway; Harrison was an arrogant bastard on a good day, but he was well aware of his own limitations when it came to knowledge, and relied heavily on Jay’s input regarding, as he said, ‘decanting’.

Slowly, Harrison’s mobility improved. Jay protested against keeping that much a secret, but Harrison insisted, not daring to so much as wiggle a toe when anyone else was around; not even in front of Jesse.

Zoom kept the city in a low-level state of fear, and Harrison started yet another project, reading “Programming in Swift for Dummies” and playing around with the innards of an iPhone.

Jay managed to keep his curiosity to himself, with that, and wasn’t sure why he was so relieved that Harrison hadn’t just decided to teach himself advanced molecular engineering instead of contacting Jay and bringing him in.

He even _paid_ Jay, a competitive consulting fee that he wasn’t sure Harrison could really afford, but Jesse didn’t seem to be lacking in new clothes and fancy tech and college textbooks, so he pretended not to worry about it.

“I think this is it,” Harrison said, suddenly, interrupting Jay’s musing.

“What?” Jay asked, and he watched as the energy readings on the display spike and waver.

“I think that this is the force he’s using to move so quickly.”

Jay watched as Harrison replayed the data visualization, and he frowned. On the next monitor, a security camera blurred and went clear in time with the simulation.

“That would appear to be it,” Jay said softly, and Harrison nodded, his head too close to Jay’s cheek, so his hair brushed Jay’s skin and Jay shivered.

“So,” Harrison said. “I think it’s time for another lumbar puncture.”

Jay snorted, but he obediently went to find Harrison’s personal nurse and let her know what they wanted.

***

The mysterious piezoelectric effect on Harrison’s cells was definitely related to the quantum forces that Zoom exerted or effected or… whatever he did; that much was easily proven.

But the _why_ of things was impossible to determine, and so Harrison had been working, slowly, with more of Jay’s help than he’d like to admit, on a vehicle for systemic delivery. Local delivery was easy enough; Harrison had been pumping it into his CSF twice daily for weeks at that point, but it hadn’t sped up his whole system, just his destroyed spinal cord.

(In the privacy of his own bedroom, he’d determined that he had nearly regained full mobility. Atrophy was a problem, but he’d worry about that if he hadn’t managed to work through it on his own by the time they had a working experimental therapy.)

He was, in fact, exercising his quadriceps when Garrick called, breathless with happiness. “I’ve got it!” he shouted in Harrison’s ear, and Harrison’s heart started racing, because he couldn’t mean-- “I know how to deliver it systemically. What if we introduce a biological component? It would also create a delayed release, and it could theoretically last in the system for several days, or even a week, until the body fought the infection off.”

“That is--” Harrison bit his lip and forced himself to do one more rep. “Brilliant, Garrick. Perfect. You’ve more than earned your pay this week.”

Jay laughed, and Harrison’s heart skipped a beat now, and he barely heard, “See you at the lab,” before Jay hung up.

Harrison hauled himself into the shower and sat on the seat before turning on the spray.

No need to advertise the _rest_ of it.

***  
Jay stared at Velocity in its smooth silver injector, and Harrison cleared his throat. “Well, Garrick. Are you ready?”

“We never named the quantum force that is… exerting. Being exerted?”

Harrison snorted. “I’m sure we’ll think of something appropriate.”

Jay reached for the injector, then snatched his hand back. “Why me?” he asked. “It was your idea.”

“If it really will grant us the same biological capabilities as Zoom, would you trust me with it?” Harrison asked.

Jay looked at him and opened his mouth to say ‘yes’, but then he thought about 17 people dead, about Tess Morgan’s battered body on the television for days on end. He thought about what it would mean to suddenly lose his legs and his life’s work and his love all at once.

“See?” Harrison said gently. “It has to be you. It was always _you_ , Jay.”

Jay took the injector and turned it over in his hands. “Where should I--”

“An artery, I think,” Harrison said. “The carotid might be best, but it seems… dramatic.”

Jay was wearing thick canvas work pants, and he’d rather not take them off in front of Harrison. He put his hand on the table, palm up, and centered the injector over the ulnar artery in his wrist, where the skin was delicate and thin. “Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” Harrison agreed, a smirk just edging into his expression, which meant he was sensing Jay’s fear. Jay scowled and pressed the trigger.

It _hurt._

The bacteria they were using as a delivery agent would give him a fever, and the speed itself was like lightning on his skin, and he thought he might be having a heart attack with the way his pulse was suddenly racing.

Then, the world around him slowed to a snail’s pace, and he could tell Harrison was talking, but it was like trying to listen underwater, distorted and incomprehensible.

“Wow,” he breathed. “Okay.”

He shut his eyes and focused, and suddenly everything was normal again.

“--die on me, Garrick,” Harrison was saying, fury sparking in his eyes.

“It’s a definite possibility in the case of experimentation on human test subjects,” Jay said.

Harrison snorted, and shook his head. “Well, you _didn’t_ die.”

“You’re standing up,” Jay said, wondering why that detail had escaped his notice until just that moment; wondering why it made his heart race and his skin heat again.

“So I am, Garrick,” Harrison snapped. “But _you’re_ the one whose dose was _experimental_ , so why don’t we focus on _that_.”

The first dose lasted 16 days, and by then they’d modified the delivery vehicle so his body wouldn’t recognize it as a known pathogen, and Jay took his second dose the morning before Zoom decided to hold the Central City Police Department headquarters building hostage.

***

“They’re calling you ‘The Flash,’” Harrison greeted Garrick. He’d stopped using the wheelchair after that first dose; it seemed pointless, now.

Garrick was very literally _vibrating_ with excitement. “I like it,” he said. “I like the other one too, the one Iris Allen came up with.”

“The Crimson Comet?” Harrison asked, twisting his face in disgust. “It’s ridiculous.”

“It’s amazing. Harrison, it _worked_. I’m a hero. I’m _the_ hero!”

Garrick was grinning at him, and the excitement was heating the air around them.

“You nearly died,” Harrison pointed out. His simulation beeped, and Jay whirled to look at it; sending up a current of displaced air. Harrison’s blood ran cold, and he moved to lay a hand on Garrick’s shoulder.

Garrick was looking down at him, his eyes intense, lightning dancing in their depths. The simulation was flashing its results, but Garrick hadn’t seen, couldn’t have seen--

“You can’t die on me too,” Harrison said, just enough of his genuine feeling under the words for Garrick to decide to act, not enough for him to know how deep the feelings were starting to run--

Jay kissed like the tide, _too much_ warring with _not enough_ as Jay tried to figure how to balance kissing and the Speed Force at the same time. His fingers clenched tight around Harrison’s shoulders and Harrison leaned in, thinking about Jay’s brilliance and his bravery.

Thinking about how very much Jay would hate Harrison if he _knew_ , thinking about how very much Harrison did _not_ want this man’s hatred.

“What--” Jay broke off to gasp. “Why?”

“I find,” Harrison said, trying to steady his breathing, steady himself. “That very few people in the world have the ability and the desire to keep up with me.”

“So kissing is my reward for dealing with your assholery.”

“No,” Harrison. “Kissing is _my_ reward for tolerating your continued presence.”

“Oh, you bastard,” Jay said, but he managed to make them both _naked_ in the time it took Harrison to _blink_ , and he licked his lips and allowed his newly-perfect body to respond to Jay’s warm presence.

***

Velocity-3 was yet another bacterial modification, but Harrison had finally figured out what they had managed to do to the bacteria to make it produce the serum, and he thought perhaps he could trick his genetic lab into creating a retrovirus that would rewrite Jay’s DNA.

Velocity-2 had taken less time to wear off, and the crazed look in Jay’s eyes as he’d sweated and twitched and at one point had a seizure while Harrison had raced to synthesize a new formula had brought home for Harrison how very not okay Jay was without the serum in his body.

“Please,” Jay had whispered as Harrison decanted the newest formulation with trembling hands. “Just kill me. I can’t-- I can’t go _back_.”

Jay Garrick was not Tess Morgan, but he challenged Harrison and didn’t let Harrison bully him, and Jesse liked him, and Harrison would absolutely _not_ let the man die.

Harrison’s simulation beeped again, the seventeenth time he’d run it, and he barely glanced at it, knowing that if he didn’t prep the dose soon, Jay was going to seize again.

“It’ll be okay,” Harrison said, drawing Jay’s hand away from the protective curl of his body and pressing the injector against the clammy skin of his wrist. “Just relax. This will hold you until my genetics team finds a better solution to our problem with the infection being healed. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

Jay opened bloodshot eyes, no longer sparking with lightning. “Hate you,” he snarled, and Harrison pressed the button.

Jay arched up in a rictus of agony, and then he relaxed, the trembling subsiding, the pallor of his skin warming back to healthy pink, and Harrison checked that the IV catheter was still intact before turning back to his simulation.

He shook his head at the numbers. “This can’t be true.”

***

Jay eyed the injector in Harrison’s hands warily. “No more abrupt detoxing?” he asked. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Harrison said. “It will literally rewrite your DNA. It must be close to what Zoom used; I can’t explain his lack of side-effects any other way.”

Jay took the injector. “Okay,” he said, but he sounded wary, withdrawn. Harrison wondered if he was supposed to try to seduce him into complying, if Jay wanted a kiss and a caress and a whispered lie of reassurance.

His simulation beeped again, and when Harrison turned to to attend to it, he heard the rasp of the formula being injected.

That was a no on the seduction, then. He tried not to feel disappointed, but he was pretty sure that it was a good thing Jay couldn’t see his face.

“No, no, no,” Harrison muttered, staring at the newest results of the simulation. He’d finally accepted what his data had been telling him, and decided to run a projection.

“No what?” Jay asked. “If I can trust you with my genetic make up, I think you should be able to trust me with your data analyses.”

He sounded so rational, so much _himself_ in ways he hadn’t since the 14th day of the first trial, that Harrison stood up and let Jay sit at the terminal.

“What is this?”

“It’s a simulation of the rate of dark matter influx into Central City,” Harrison replied. “See, here is today’s date; I’ve been collecting readings from the sensors you set out to track Zoom.”

“I thought you turned off the accelerator!” Jay snapped. Harrison jerked away from the sudden crackle of energy heating his skin.

“I did!” Harrison protested. “I--” Jay was suddenly right in front of him, glaring. Harrison put up his hands, paltry as the defense was.

“Then how come dark matter is still coming through?”

“I don’t know,” Harrison whispered. “It’s not possible.”

“I _trusted_ you,” Jay said. “I _believed_ your whole act about how _sorry_ you were, about how you’d lost as much as anyone who’d been hurt. But it’s all been a lie, hasn’t it? You wanted your _puppet_ hero, wanted to distract the masses from the _real_ problems.”

“Jay, no,” Harrison said.

“Why me?” Jay asked.

“Tess--”

“Your _dead wife_ thought I should be a hero?” Jay demanded. “Tell me, _Wells_. Did she pick out the poor bastard you have playing the villain too?”

Harrison gaped at him.

“Who is he, Wells? _Who is Zoom?_ ”

“I-- I don’t know. You know I don’t.”

Jay laughed, shook his head, and disappeared in a flash.

***

The irrational behavior was concerning; Jay no longer cared to keep his identity secret, no longer went to work at his lab or in his capacity as a consultant for STAR. Harrison could barely keep an eye on him.

If he’d simply disappeared, Harrison thought that might be one thing, but the sudden increase in acts of heroism was impossible to ignore, and Harrison devoted some processor time to tracking him through the sensors in the city.

Much of the rest of his processor time was spent trying to reverse the influx of dark matter into Central City, but that was a long-term problem.

Of more immediate concern was figuring out what in the Velocity formula had induced the mania and the irrational behavior.

If he could figure out a way to reverse that, and then a way to administer it to Zoom, then Central City might stand a chance against him.

He had heard that Dr. Snow had awoken from her coma at last, and he needed expert help in developing Velocity-5.

***

Jay Garrick disappeared, and the next morning Zoom took Jesse too.

Harrison vowed to recover them both.

He _would_ fix the mess he’d made.

***

He would.

***

_Jay came back to himself in a hospital in a place that might have been Central City, though the billboards were wrong and the food tasted off._

_He couldn’t outrun a bullet, but he could breathe, could_ think _, and when he heard about the other Flash, he resolved to rescue whoever Harrison had seduced into trying Velocity this time by whatever means necessary._


End file.
